extend, bend, land, a shifting of weight,her state of mind, her way of beingfully integrated. full of intenttinariwen sings to her. As she hums,sand spills from her fingers. her body, her tent is the center, the keeper.she is believes as she walks

sail once moreto new landyielded ofinfected rootcropped outbut extant, weave dust and air for food, croppingeverywhere

because theyare hungry.

Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, author of Soft: A Memoir, is a recipient of an Artist Initiative Award through the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Beyond the Pure Fellowship and SASE/Jerome Grant through Intermedia Arts. She was a Loft Mentor Series winner in Creative Nonfiction, a Jones’ Commission Award Winner through the Playwrights’ Center and was selected for the Givens Black Writers Collaborative. She’s published poems and essays in various literary journals including Aquifer: The Florida Review, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Serendipity among others. Her work is also featured in the anthologies The Poverty and Education Reader and How Dare We! Write. Fernandez-Williams discovered her need for words in Brooklyn, New York, where she was born and raised, but she “grew up” as a writer in the Twin Cities.